Monthly Archives: March 2014

Gosh, where has the time gone?? I have done very few photography outings this year and I have really missed it. Life has a way of redirecting you at its own whims, but I am getting back to the photography in this post.

I finally took a group of photographers to the Red Cross Community Store in Stanley Co, NC two Saturdays ago. The store isn’t about first aid supplies, it is a store built in the early 1900’s in the community of Red Cross. Red Cross was named from the red clay that became very slick and hard to negotiate during bad weather. This store is full of all kinds of interesting and eclectic “stuff” including a few old cars to photograph.

While we were there a guy came rolling up in a 40’s panel truck. He was looking for the owner of the store which is still owned and run by the family of the founder, and he was surprised at all the photographers. He asked me what we were doing and I told him I was an organizer for the Charlotte Photography Group out of Charlotte. I was hosting 15 photographers in our group shooting all the great stuff at the store.

He introduced himself as Rick Allen, and told me he had a huge building full of old motorcycles, including some old knuckleheads, Indians and lots of other old Harleys. He told me we were welcome to come over and photograph his collection. Well, you can imagine I was beside myself. I told him that would be awesome and I could set up a photography outing for our members.

I called him that very next week I and took 15 photographers there this past Saturday. I can’t tell you how excited I was to get the opportunity to shoot some old motorcycles.

The place was better than I had imagined. It’s a huge building with various Harleys and Indians, including some from the 30’s, and there are even some choppers from the 70’s. There were also lots of parts hanging around. Rick, who bought his first Harley, a 1954 panhead, in 1973, had stories for all of them. You could tell how much he loves buying, restoring, selling and collecting these babies. Rick sells parts on ebay, you can find him at 1936flyingcloud, his ebay seller name.

He was the most generous person allowing us carte blanche to his building, and believe me we were all just as excited to shoot them as he was to own them. I wish I had taken the time to write down some of the stories so I could link them to the photos. I’ll do a better job next time.

I have included just a few of the photos that I took that day at the end of this blog post. As you can see I spent most of my time doing close up shooting because of all the great details of the motorcycles that were interesting. Stay tuned for my next outing when I will spend more time shooting the bikes themselves. I will definitely take another photography group there because this place is like nirvana for someone like me.

Thanks to Rick Allen, and his wife Janet, for allowing us the privilege of photographing his collection.